


i thank my lucky stars (for every crack, scratch, and scar)

by my_infinite_variety



Series: lucky stars 'verse [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Captain John Watson, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Greg Lestrade is a Good Friend, Gunshot Wounds, John Watson in Afghanistan, M/M, Married Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Military John Watson, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Near Death Experiences, POV Greg Lestrade, POV John Watson, POV Multiple, POV Sally Donovan, POV Sherlock Holmes, Relationship Reveal, Reunions, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24029320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_infinite_variety/pseuds/my_infinite_variety
Summary: Sherlock was acting strangely.Greg was aware that Sherlock acting a bit out of the ordinary wasn’t unusual. In fact, weird was Sherlock’s own brand of normal. But he had been texting the bloke for a week straight with no reply, not even with the promise of a locked-room murder.The locked-room murder, admittedly, had been a lie but Sherlock didn’t need to know that.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: lucky stars 'verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734766
Comments: 38
Kudos: 647





	i thank my lucky stars (for every crack, scratch, and scar)

**Author's Note:**

> hey! i love these kind of fics and decided to try my hand at it, so i hope you all like it.  
> the title is from bon jovi's song "scars on this guitar"
> 
> p.s. if you want more in this 'verse then tell me. i really liked writing this one.

In Sally’s defense, she was having a shitty morning. The kind of morning that made her want to quit her job and move to Sussex on a whim. The kind of morning that made her want to scream at Philip until he cried. She hadn’t even had time to get a cup of coffee in her rush to get dressed in Philip’s tiny bathroom. What was worse was that she could tell Holmes could see all of it on her. He could pick out every detail. 

Sherlock, the man of the hour, was striding about the crime scene with his hands digging into his curls and his eyes flitting across the evidence. A silver band that was both modest and stylish shone in the light from Sherlock’s left ring finger, something completely out of character on him. He had walked onto the scene first thing in the morning, coat swishing around obnoxiously and scarf hanging free like it had been tugged loose, looking ruffled and decidedly uncomfortable. Maybe Sally was seeing things, but she thought his eyes looked a bit red around the edges. 

Sally could have attributed the lump of metal and his appearance to a case of some sort. She could have dismissed it immediately and gone on to do her job, could have looked away and kept her thoughts to herself, but she hadn’t made Detective Sergeant with a meek disposition. She was curious and her curiosity had gotten her places. 

“What’s with the ring, freak?” Sally called, Sherlock standing up straighter from his position next to the two bodies. He kept his back to her, too stubborn to fight back with shouting. “Did you get lonely? Pay someone to warm your bed?”

He turned his head, Sally staring down his profile and waiting for a scathing retort. His nostrils flared, anger and indignation flashing on his face before his features smoothed over and he was emotionless once again. The switch gave Sally whiplash. “How does it feel to be warming Anderson’s marital bed, Sergeant? Or has he restricted you to his floors?”

“How-?” Philip exclaimed, his head popping up from the sea of blue plastic suits and his face twisting into an unattractive snarl. Sherlock, however, was already gone. Even his mop of curls was lost in the crowd of onlookers, the detective melting into London’s masses without a problem. It only occurred to her later, when Lestrade was scolding her for scaring him off, that he hadn’t answered her question.

-

Sherlock was acting strangely.

Greg was aware that Sherlock acting a bit out of the ordinary wasn’t unusual. In fact, weird was Sherlock’s own brand of normal. But he had been texting the bloke for a week straight with no reply, not even with the promise of a locked-room murder. The locked-room murder, admittedly, had been a lie but Sherlock didn’t need to know that.

Greg’s phone was eerily silent as the days passed and the real murder he was working on progressed at a snail’s pace, Scotland Yard and Bart’s off-kilter without the detective running about like he owned the ground he stood on. So when Greg found himself standing outside of 221, hand raised to knock on the dark painted wood of the door, he wondered what he would find inside. 

Mrs. Hudson answered the door, looking teary-eyed and worn. Her face softened when they met eyes and Greg had the impression she was relieved to see him. “Oh, Inspector! I’ve been meaning to call you but I’ve been so busy with Sherlock. It’s simply dreadful. He’s been in such a strop.” He opened his mouth to reply, brows furrowed in confusion, but Mrs. Hudson was already opening the door wide and beckoning him inside. “Come in, come in. He’s right upstairs, the poor thing.”

“Thank you,” he said as he stepped over the threshold, following her up the stairs at a snail’s pace. When Mrs. Hudson opened the door and the two of them stepped inside, he wondered if the flat he was seeing was the same one Sherlock had moved into almost a month ago. 

Scraps of paper and medical books were strewn across the hard floor, Sherlock’s beloved violin cradled in the bulky armchair, the bow on the ground. Lestrade expected the kitchen to be a mess of experiments, but the counters and island were clean and tidy. The air smelled of lemon and Earl Grey tea, something Greg knew Sherlock didn’t drink. He preferred herbal tea for some ungodly reason, but teacups filled to the brim with Earl Grey littered the coffee table, some of them looking like they’d been sitting there for days. 

Sherlock himself was curled toward the back of the ratty couch, his back facing Greg and his rob engulfing his lithe body. His curls, tangled and greasy, hid his profile from his landlady and the detective. He hadn’t moved at all since Mrs. Hudson opened the door, too caught up in whatever he was angsting over. Greg wanted to reach out, rest a hand on the young consultant’s shoulder, but he wasn’t sure how the physical affection would be received. Not well, he assumed. 

“Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson called, like she was coaxing a scared pup out from under a bed. “The Inspector’s here to see you. He has a case.”

Greg hadn’t mentioned anything about a case, but the old woman turned her head and gave a sly wink and cleared up any confusion in a heartbeat. She obviously wasn’t above lying to get her couch-ridden tenant up and out of his haze. “At least an 8,” he added, trying to be helpful.

“Liar,” the lump on the couch sighed, like speaking was a chore. It sounded like he’d been crying, Greg’s inference confirmed when Sherlock’s thin hands came up to scrub hard at his face. A silver band glinted on his hand, the metal shining in the low light from the lamp. “You still haven’t solved the last murder I consulted on.”

“Probably because you ran off before you could do any consulting, you pillock,” Greg said gruffly, still a bit miffed about the whole situation. Donovan had gotten a long lecture after Sherlock had fled, but the Inspector still hadn’t figured out what she’d said to the detective. The whole conversation between them was shrouded with mystery, if only to Greg. Even Anderson, who had only caught a few words, was keeping his mouth shut. Now, faced with the ring on Sherlock’s finger, he was sure of the topic of their quarrel. 

“What a shame,” Sherlock drawled, rolling onto his back and locking eyes with the officer. His face was hard, set in stone, but the tracks on his cheeks betrayed the emotion roiling under the surface. “Scotland Yard, unable to solve their own cases. The lot of you unable to do your jobs without a _civilian_ - ”

“Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson said in a scolding tone, Sherlock’s mouth snapping shut with a clack. “No need to be so rude, dear. You know John wouldn’t-”

“I bloody know what John would want, Mrs. Hudson!” Sherlock swept up from the couch, making Greg stumble back to avoid being swatted with a flailing arm. The consulting detective, visually affected by the mention of this _John_ fellow, fled to the window and stared down onto the street. In the light, Sherlock looked even worse. The bags under his eyes were heavy and dark, his shoulders hunched inward. He looked pitiful, like he needed a good hug and a bowl of soup. “There’s no need to remind me. No need to _bully_ me into acting _normal_ . Now get out. I need to be alone.”

“Sherlock,” Greg tried, not even sure what he could say to make Sherlock feel better. He didn’t even know what was wrong. 

“I said get out,” Sherlock hissed, curling in on himself tighter. He reminded Greg of a feral cat, cornered and aggressive. “I’ll contact you when I want a case. No sooner, no later.”

Greg dipped his head, stepped back, and left through the front door with Sherlock’s condition heavy on his conscience. When Sherlock texted him three weeks later about the serial armed robberies occurring all over London, it was like a weight was lifted off his shoulders. The case wasn’t even a four.

-

For Scotland Yard, a year passed in a blink of an eye. On the whole, things ran smoothly within the walls of the building and the yellow tape of crime scenes. Sherlock was quieter and more withdrawn, but his deductions were no less accurate and his ripostes were no less biting when Sally could coax it out of him. Greg had even started having a cuppa with him after every case. Granted, most of his visits were shrouded in silence, but he thought Sherlock might have appreciated the company.

For Sherlock, the days passed slowly and the nights passed even slower. There were phone calls and Skype calls and letters, but nothing could replace John in his bed or the sound of his laughter in Sherlock’s ear. So Sherlock took every case he could get his hands on; cold cases, murders, robberies, missing persons, everything. It wasn’t enough, nothing ever could be, but it helped to keep the nightmares at bay when Sherlock found snatches of sleep. The wing labelled _John Hamish Watson-Holmes_ closed off and padlocked shut during the day, was open and all-encompassing during the night. There were images of John leaving for three separate tours, flashes of John holding him in the darkness of their bedroom on Montague, early morning kisses and late night caresses, John marrying him the day before his third deployment, Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson as witnesses, the soldier kissing him hard and sliding a ring onto his finger. Then the next morning, John promising him he would come home and that this time it would be to stay. Sherlock hated promises, knew they were impossible and idealistic, but he held onto John’s with everything in him.

On Sherlock’s 374th day without John Watson, he arrived on the scene of a triple murder at nearly four in the afternoon with a scowl on his face. Officers and medical examiners were milling around as they always did, at least half of them distracted by the unseasonably warm weather and the sun beaming down on them. Even Sherlock was affected, his coat and scarf left at home and his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

Lestrade, the only one truly focusing on his job, looked to be in a similar state. His coat was absent as well, probably left in the passenger seat of his car, and his wrinkled sleeves were shoved up haphazardly instead of rolled neatly. Rough morning then. Woke up late, only had time to drink the burned coffee at the precinct based on the stain on his collar. His watch was missing, likely forgotten on his bedside table or bathroom sink. Sherlock concluded that short and sweet would be the best approach. 

“What do you have for me?” Sherlock asked, eyes drifting over the bodies and blood stain patterns with interest.

Lestrade glanced over, lifting his notepad up to his face and squinting down at the paper. He would need reading glasses soon. “Three bodies, two of them identified by a neighbor that reported a disturbance late last night.” Lestrade pointed at the dark-haired male body that laid face down on the grass. “His name is Jacob Langford. Twenty-eight. Married to Amanda Langford, the female victim. She’s twenty-six. The other male victim isn’t identified yet.”

“The murder weapon?” Sherlock knelt down next to the female body, examining the back of her head. There wasn’t a wound, no blood, but the dent in her skull made her cause of death clear. He was sure her husband’s cause of death would be similar.

“Not found yet,” Lestrade sighed, snapping his notepad shut and kneeling down next to Sherlock. They were close enough to brush shoulders, but Sherlock didn’t break his focus on the bodies in front of him. “What have you got for us so far?”

“Plenty,” Sherlock said absently, standing up and moving on to the man a few feet away from the other bodies. His cause of death was different, no signs of blunt force trauma. Bruising was visible across the victim’s body, clearly just before death, and sweat stains under the victim’s arms and at the collar of his shirt. Could have been the heat, but that was unlikely based on the estimated time of death.

“Anything you want to tell me?” Lestrade asked, back on his feet and running a hand through his grey hair in frustration. He sounded tired, more than usual, and Sherlock wondered if his newly official ex-wife had called. It was the most likely conclusion based on his behavior and attitude.

“Double murder-suicide,” Sherlock concluded, sweeping to his feet and brushing the grass from his trousers. “Murder by blunt force trauma from an object similar to a cricket bat. The murder weapon will most likely be found in the murderer’s car out on the street, so I suggest you identify him immediately. I can’t do all of the work for you after all.”

“What about him?” Lestrade waved a hand out at the murderer lying at their feet. “How did he die?”

Sherlock sighed, like the very question was too much to bear. “Poisoning, I’d imagine. Hard to identify which one without blood tests, but based on the condition of the body and the bruising pattern-”

“Batrachotoxin.”

And everything, as it always did when John Watson-Holmes was near, slowed to a stop.

-

Captain John H. Watson-Holmes of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, husband to the only consulting detective on the planet, was dying. Or, at least, it felt like it.

He laid on a stretcher, staring up into Bill Murray’s eyes, and wondered what Sherlock would say when a soldier arrived at their front door with a flag and an apology. He wondered if he would cry or retreat into himself too far for Mrs. Hudson to reach.

Bill was talking, John knew he was, but everything had long since faded into a dull buzz. Would they send Bill to do the honors? Would Bill tell Sherlock what it was like to watch him die? What it was like to feel John falling through his fingers like sand? 

John closed his eyes, opened them, and closed them once again. The next time they would open, John would be in a bed in a Kandahar hospital with a bandage on his shoulder, two surgeries under his belt, and his gold wedding band staring him in the face from his bedside table.

It would be two weeks before John was walking again and another week before Mycroft arrived, looming over his hospital bed first thing in the morning like a messenger of death. There had been no call from home, no letters with Sherlock’s posh handwriting, and not a hint of his beloved detective. Only his meddlesome brother, sticking his impressively sized nose into everyone’s business. 

“We wouldn’t want to cause Sherlock any unnecessary distress,” Mycroft intoned, like being at John’s bedside was immeasurably boring. John was sure it was compared to consistently preventing World War III. “He hasn’t been made aware of your condition and, as I’m sure you’re aware, you are in the process of being honorably discharged.”

John gaped at him, not quite processing what he was saying beyond “Sherlock” and “discharged” with the painkillers in his system making his brain the equivalent of pea soup. 

“There is a flight at 1700 hours destined for London. I have been assured by your doctors that you will be prepared for such a flight.” Mycroft paused, his clever eyes wandering over John’s shoulder. “You will be provided adequate medical care in London and will be evaluated by another doctor after your… reunion with Sherlock.”

John nodded, no quite sure how else to respond. He would see Sherlock soon, within days. He was finally going home after months of work, Skype calls, and longing letters. A smile, luminous in his intensity, spread over his face.

Mycroft’s face soured, like John’s smile was the equivalent to sucking on a lemon. “There will be a car waiting for you soon. I’ve taken the liberty of collecting your things.” He turned to leave, hands tucked behind his back primly as he retreated.

“Wait,” John called, sitting up with a pained grunt. “Mycroft!”

“Yes?” Mycroft asked, stopping in the doorway. His head turned slightly, John glimpsing his profile.

John smiled again, the expression soft and without teeth. “Thank you.”

Mycroft turned fully, facing his brother-in-law fully and looking as if he was preparing to head into battle. “You are family, John,” Mycroft said stiffly, avoiding eye contact. “And it would be regrettable to see you die.” Then he was gone, sweeping through the doorway soundlessly. 

John boarded the plane on time (A private one, of course. Only the best with the Holmes clan.) and arrived in London a bit more than twenty-four hours later, feeling terrible and desperately wanting to curl up in his bed with a certain dark-haired genius.

His things were taken to 221B by Mycroft’s men, but the car he was ushered into took him to a completely different part of the city, deep into the suburbs. John, high on being home and the pills he’d been prescribed for the pain, smiled at the thought of seeing his genius in action. If not for a case, the chances of finding Sherlock Watson-Holmes in suburbia were zero. 

The car slowed to a stop on the street in front of a pair of houses, yellow tape keeping the onlookers out and the officers in. John, not put-off by the crowd and the woman guarding the entrance to the crime scene, climbed out of the car with his cane and started the search for his husband.

-

Sherlock couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think clearly. 

John was in London. John was there. John sounded just like Sherlock remembered. He was talking, rattling on about batrachotoxin, low blood pressure, and seizures, but all Sherlock could focus on was the timbre of his voice. 

The detective turned himself around slowly, locking eyes with the man he married more than a year ago. The man he’d been longing for since the day they parted ways at the airport. John H. Watson-Holmes.

“John,” Sherlock breathed, and his husband smiled wide, teeth flashing in the sunlight. There was a cane, and a bandage poking out from under his uniform, but they would have time to talk about that later. They finally had time to just _be_ .

“Miss me?” John asked, cocky in his delivery, and Sherlock launched himself at the soldier, wrapping him up in his arms tightly. The cane John was clutching fell with a thump onto the grass and John’s dog tags were digging into Sherlock’s skin, but it was perfect. Everything was perfect.

John was warm in his arms after 374 days of wishing and Sherlock didn’t plan on letting him go. 

**Author's Note:**

> don't forget to leave a comment and/or kudos!  
> leave a request on my tumblr (myinfinitevariety.tumblr.com)


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